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J.B. and M.K. Pritzker Family Foundation

$25 million

Pritzker Children’s Initiative (PCI), a national project of the J.B. and M.K. Pritzker Family Foundation, has worked for over a decade toward a single achievable goal: that all at-risk infants and toddlers obtain access to high-quality early childhood development opportunities, increasing their likelihood of success in school and in life. Today, to continue its work in making early childhood development a national priority, PCI takes bold action on behalf of our country’s most vulnerable infants and toddlers and their families with an increased commitment of $25 million over five years in three areas: 1) Scaling zero-to-three high-quality, evidence-based early childhood programs; 2) Advancing early learning Social Impact Bond investments to increase access to evidence-based programs; 3) Furthering research on the economic efficacy of government investments in early childhood development that transform the lives of disadvantaged young children and their families. Through the Pritzker Early Childhood Consortium at the University of Chicago, PCI will build upon groundbreaking research by Nobel laureate economist James Heckman establishing the high returns from public investments in early childhood, and will advance these findings through the Heckman Equation online platform.

Similarly, PCI continues to support the University of Minnesota’s Child-Parent Centers Education Program and the Faculty Innovation Fund at the Erikson Institute, both of which will spur a deeper understanding of best practices within the early childhood development field. PCI will dramatically expand access to high-quality services for children and families by catalyzing public and private capital through innovative financing tools, as illustrated by the recent Social Impact Bonds in Salt Lake County and Chicago. As a leading funder of Educare in underserved communities in Washington, D.C., Chicago and DuPage County in Illinois, PCI will further highlight best practices in Early Head Start and Head Start classroom settings while engaging parents with a full compliment of support services. In addition, PCI will partner with organizations that build sustainable quality in early childhood programs, such as Ounce of Prevention Fund, First Five Years Fund, HealthConnect One, New America Foundation’s Early Education Initiative, Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, Alliance for Early Success, ReadyNation and BUILD Initiative.